Electronic systems and circuits have made a significant contribution towards the advancement of modern society and are utilized in a number of applications to achieve advantageous results. Numerous electronic technologies such as digital computers, calculators, audio devices, video equipment, and telephone systems have facilitated increased productivity and reduced costs in analyzing and communicating data, ideas and trends in most areas of business, science, education and entertainment. Frequently, these advantageous results are realized through the use of software stored on a memory media and implemented by a processing device. Selecting and accessing appropriate software directed to producing desired results is often very cumbersome and complicated.
Software typically includes information utilized in the performance of a multitude of tasks directed towards providing a variety of results. For example, software is often used to control and direct device operations in a computer system. Software requirements for different systems typically vary and are seldom static. For example, most computer systems are not configured with identical components and the different components (e.g., printers, network cards, video cards, etc.) usually require different software device drivers. When a device is added to a system an appropriate device driver is required to be installed to enable the operating system to manage the device. New software is also often required to be added to a system to take advantage of advances in technology or provide functions included in new software programs.
Determining appropriate software for the performance of a task and successfully installing the software are activities requiring a relatively high degree of precision and accuracy. Choosing and loading an appropriate software application typically involves significant user interaction that often requires extensive specialized knowledge beyond the range of general user experience. For example, selected software usually has to coherently interact with very specific individual idiosyncrasies of numerous different devices. There are also numerous different functions a user may desire to implement and picking software capable of providing maximized results is usually very difficult. Selecting appropriate software and correctly installing it are usually critical to accomplishing desired results.
Providing users with a wide assortment of software and an opportunity for maximizing satisfaction with desired functionality is important. Centralized storage with access over a network for downloading of particularly desired software to distributed resources usually provides some advantages and relieves individual distributed systems from managing extraneous information. Traditional attempts at accessing software via a network system typically require the user to determine appropriate software, manage the software communication (e.g., via a file transfer protocol, hyper text transfer protocol, etc.) and install the software properly. Each of these activities are usually very susceptible to user error and users typically have difficulty with activities such as figuring out the system hardware with sufficient specificity, accurately conveying correct information in a communication protocol, and executing the proper instructions to install the software. Prior attempts at addressing software distribution usually involve the dissemination of information consisting of highly technical brief statements beyond the comprehension of the average user and offer little practical guidance.
Thus, the prior art requires a user to possess significant expertise and employ exhaustive efforts in analyzing complicated target configurations and participate in convoluted processes to load software on a target system.